Thursday: Unemployment Claims

Here is an updated housing and mortgage forecast from Goldman Sachs economist Hui Shan: Housing at half time: activity picks up while prices slow down

There are clear signs of house price growth deceleration. Across various indices, year over year appreciation rate has declined from double digits to high single digits. … We update our bottom-up house price forecast model. At the national level, we expect house price growth to fall from 9.0% during the past year to 4.7% in the coming year and 3.0% in the year thereafter.…We now expect mortgage rate to rise to 4.5% by year-end.…the underlying housing recovery continues. … Although we see housing activity improving further in the second half of 2014, we expect the pace of the recovery to be moderate.emphasis added

CR Note: I also expect house price increases to slow, and for activity to pickup going forward. At the end of 2013, mortgage rates were around 4.62%, so Goldman is forecasting rates will down year-over-year (rates are currently down about 45 bps compared to a year ago according to Mortgage News Daily).

Thursday:• Early: Trulia Price Rent Monitors for June. This is the index from Trulia that uses asking house prices adjusted both for the mix of homes listed for sale and for seasonal factors.

• At 8:30 AM ET, the initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to increase to 316 thousand from 315 thousand.

• At 10:00 AM, the Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories report for May. The consensus is for a 0.6% increase in inventories.